NEWS BULLETIN - Rotary Club of Guelph

News Bulletin
THE ROTARY CLUB OF GUELPH
A Weekly Report on the Activities of the Rotary Club of Guelph – 4 April 2014
The Rotary Club of Guelph
Box 511, Guelph, ON N1H 6K9
www.rotaryclubofguelph.com
President: Jim Wadleigh
Treasurer: Trevor Lee
Secretary: Kerry Johnson
519-821-3863
District 7080
Club 4645
Charter Feb 23, 1920
Introductory Remarks
President Jim welcomed
Rotarians and guests to a
program with a last minute change, as the scheduled speaker was unable
to attend and Drs. AnneMarie Zajdlik and Karen
Hand gamely filled in on
extremely short notice.
Jim then proposed a toast
to the enticingly named
“Parkland After Dark
Club” which is located in
Sherwood Park Alberta
(ed. a suburb of Edmonton, thanks to Google
President Jim Wadleigh
maps). It is the practice
of that club to toast other clubs in Canada and send a card to the “toasted”
club. Our Club reciprocated the toast.
Finally, President Jim thanked and welcomed back our musical director
Keith Conrad. “It took two musicians to fill your shoes while you were
gone. We had a very fast Oh Canada, and a very slow one, and yours is
just the right speed.”
Happy Birthday
2013-14
Rotary International President
Ron D. Burton
Norman, Oklahoma, USA
We sang Happy Birthday to John Caron, who is recovering from some
health issues.
District 7080 DG:
Mike Gauthier, Palgrave
Program — continued on page 2
Upcoming Meetings and Events
 Fri 11 Apr: Vertigo is Essential To Your Success — Doug Dane
 Sat 12 Apr: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner —
See Jane Armstrong
 Fri 18 Apr: Meeting Cancelled — Good Friday
 Fri 25 Apr: Barnyard Lessons in Human Behaviour — Byron Beeler
 Sat 26 Apr: Rotary Forest and Earth Day —
See Liz Cooney
 Fri 2 May: Healthy in a Hurry — Emily Richards
 Fri 9 May: Toronto 2015 PanAm Games — Saad
Rafi, CEO TO2015
 Fri 16 May: Classification Talk — Mahmud Ali
Hassain
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Attendance
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Program – continued from page 1
Present
Anderson, Broadwith, Brubacher,
Cooney, Curry, Dance, Dickie, Demarco,
Dolynchuk, Dredge, Eszes, Evans, Fryett, Funnell, Gammie, Hammill, Hassain,
Hewson, Irvine, Jackson, Jadeski, Johnson, L. Jones, Koester, Latreille, MacKenzie, McAuley, McLeod, G. Moore,
Newton, Olsen, Parr, A. Pennock, P.
Pennock, Pietrobon, Ralph, Ramprashad,
Rennie, Ricketts, Runions, Shortreed,
Singh, Smith, Stachnyk, Steele, J. Stevens, B. Stevens, Tam, Thatcher, Truex,
Vales, Valle, Vanderkamp, Vieira, Wadleigh, Weatherson, Wettstein, Whittaker,
Whitestone, Winegard, Zajdlik
Makeups
The makeups recorded in last week’s
News Bulletin were incorrect. The correct list is below.
Makeups March 28
(Board Meeting: March 17): Eszes,
Groenewald, Mau, (Canada Day: February 28): Dickie, Groenewald, (Corporate
Coordinating Committee: March 20):
Worthen, (Service Development: February 19): Jackson
Other Clubs
Seager (St. Catharines: Mar. 27)
Makeups April 4, 2014
None
Head Table
SPEAKER — Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik
SPEAKER — Dr. Karen Hand
THANKER — Paul DeMarco
CHAIRING — Jim Wadleigh
INTRODUCER — Noma Valaes
Program — Update on Projects in Lesotho
Introduction – Noma Vales
Noma first met Dr. Karen Hand through the Bracelet of Hope organization.
Right away she noticed that Karen was very enthusiastic about doing things
in Africa. Since Karen has been following what’s happening in Rotary,
Noma hopes that she will consider joining the Club.
Dr. Hand is very involved in agriculture and holds both an M.Sc. and Ph.D.
in statistics in agriculture and works mostly in dairy and swine.
Dr. Anne-Marie needs little introduction as a member of our Club, but it
is notable that she will also be part of the upcoming trip to Lesotho, and
is currently gathering information on a surprise project before bringing it
to our Club for further development.
Speaker - Dr. Karen Hand
Dr. Hand began her presentation by describing how she arrived for what
she thought was just lunch, not knowing that she was going to be asked
to speak. She credited Rotarian Fred Ramprashad for giving her “a big
stern talk” early on in her academic career, without which she would not
be standing here today. Karen had been on the Bracelet of Hope board of
directors for a few years, engaged in various activities and fundraising,
until Noma spoke, and that became “a light bulb moment.” Noma’s poultry
project inspired her. And she thought, “If poultry can do it, so can swine.”
People in Lesotho love pork. Unfortunately, the HIV pandemic meant the
loss of older farmers and mentors, and with them, the knowledge of swine
production was lost. Now individuals will raise a pig and just slaughter it
for their own consumption, or sell it to friends and neighbours. There is
very limited commercial activity. Karen put together a swine project group
that included Dr. Roger Thompson from OMAFRA (who has worked on
Program – continued on page 3
Guests
introduced by Roxanne Eszes
Daniel Barendregt — Anne Dance
Petr Vales — Noma Vales
Karen Hand — Noma Vales
Carl Webster — Jim MacKenzie
Barbara Whylie — Jim MacKenzie
Bev Trist-Stewart — Rosemary Clark
Editor 4 April
John Vieira
Editor 11 April
Paul Pennock
50/50 Draw
Bruce Whitestone
Birthdays
April 7........................Justin Funk
April 8......................Doug Adlam
April 11....................Gunter Thase
April
April
April
April
Anniversaries
5.............William Curtis (1)
8............. Karl Wettstein (9)
9...................Ian Smith (15)
9...... Mary DuQuesnay (15)
ANNOUNCEMENTS
 Guess Who’s Coming
to Dinner Sat 12th April
President Jim (on behalf of Jane
Armstrong) reminded Rotarians that there is still time to
sign up to the upcoming “Guess
Who’s Coming To Dinner”
event. Please contact Jane Armstrong for more details.
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Program – continued from page 2
projects in Tanzania), several livestock vets in Ontario, members of Ontario Pork and a Ph.D. researcher
in population medicine.
The two Drs. are now planning a major project but
will keep the details secret for now as they are still
evaluating different options. The goal is to have pork
produced and in markets in Lesotho in the next 3-5
years since right now all product is imported from
South Africa. “This can be done.” To find out how,
the group will meet with some small and larger swine
operators, they have already send over plans for pig
barns and are currently learning what the local needs
are, so that they can give them what they need to get
started. Once the plan is ready, the group can propose
a successful project and let our Club in on the details.
Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik
Dr. Zajdlik continued to talk about Karen’s project.
She mentioned that she will be travelling to Lesotho at
the end of April and will be checking in on the current
project and see if she can get her new vision off the
ground. Right now, the current project with Bracelet
of Hope and our Club will be transformative to the
economy of Lesotho. While we in Guelph take for
granted a health care system that takes care of those
infected with HIV and AIDS, in Lesotho the health
care infrastructure just isn’t there. In order to overcome the HIV pandemic, they need better health and
home care programs. If all the country’s people were
tested and treated, the pandemic would be over. And
in order to take care of the 200,000 children who have
lost one or both parents to the disease, the Bracelet
of Hope program is looking at creating foster homes.
The foster home program will allow Lesotho women
to take care of up to six children who have lost family
members to HIV infection.
Among the income generating activities, there is a
$20,000 revolving loan program, which then generates micro loans for women who want to start their
own small businesses. Although micro financing has
been great at reducing poverty rates in Third World
countries, there is still much demand for loans. Micro
financing helps women who start small businesses, but
Program – continued on page 4
Dr. Karen Hand
Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik
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The Rotary Club
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Program – continued from page 3
it is also a way to elevate a country out of poverty so
that it can then compete globally and have a health
care and education system. Local banks don’t support small businesses, because there is too much risk.
Bracelet of Hope has started a business-to-business
group, organized by Dr. Rob Butler, a local vet. The
group have partnered with 45 businesses in Lesotho,
and now a second group along with the Guelph Chamber of Commerce will travel there again and partner
and mentor with small businesses in Lesotho. It will
also create a holding fund to finance more small businesses. The goal is to increase employment by 200%
in the next five years. As an example of the investment program, the Rotary Club of Guelph has donated
$5,000 to a group of women who produce handcrafts,
to relocate their businesses to the main street of their
city, where they should quadruple in size. They have
also invested in a bakery that will continue to grow
in the local community. Anne-Marie’s team is putting
a global grant application together, and should know
in the next month if it is successful.
Anne-Marie closed her talk on a light-hearted note as
she explained why she and Karen are referred to as
“the two Drs.” She initially met Karen when her own
husband was doing his masters in statistics with Karen,
which meant that dinner conversations were not very
interesting to non statisticians. Since both husbands
have Masters degrees (in statistics and math) but not
Ph.Ds., Karen and Anne-Marie jokingly insisted that
the husbands address them as “Drs.”
Finally, Anne-Marie urged Rotarians to “Gather your
friends and neighbours and drive them crazy with
what you’re passionate about.” The Bracelet of Hope
foundation raised $1 Million in its first two and a half
years and is looking to raise another $1.5 Million in
the next five years and is a testament to hard working
volunteers and fundraisers.
Questions
With some time left in the program, the Drs. fielded
questions from the Club. Paul Truex inquired about
opportunities for young people, specifically his three
teenaged granddaughters. Dr. Anne-Marie replied that
while charitable organizations doing work overseas
are understandably cautious about younger volunteers,
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Anne-Marie wants volunteers of all ages who are
interested, to travel to Lesotho. That is why she has
rented a fully appointed bungalow so that volunteers
from Guelph can participate in the local projects and
still do so in relative safety and comfort. For 2015 she
wants to bring students to Lesotho so that they can
see what’s happening and see the positive effects of
projects. If Paul’s granddaughters are interested, she
will create a group around them.
Lawrie Jones asked about the challenges of getting
pork to market and how the project was planning on
handling the issues around production and logistics.
Dr. Karen replied that right now most of the meat
is produced through backyard slaughter and sold to
friends and family rather than going to market. In order
to be able to sell at markets, Lesotho swine producers
need to have a slaughterhouse to ensure credibility and
quality. The first step in building a slaughterhouse, is
to meet the minister of Agriculture and compel them
to build a multispecies slaughterhouse.
Noma added that it was announced recently that the
World Bank has funded the building of slaughterhouses, but the local governments are slow to get
moving. “They need to start digging.”
Thank You – Paul DeMarco
Paul thanked the impromptu speakers and confessed
that he had no idea “that swine had to do with pork.”
He also mentioned that as a member of the Bracelet
of Hope board of directors, he travelled to Lesotho
last September and was impressed and inspired by
everything he saw. It was Anne-Marie’s classification
talk that inspired him to join the board, and he is very
glad he did.
Thank You - President Jim Wadleigh
President Jim also offered a special thanks to Karen
and Anne-Marie for stepping up on extremely short
notice. He noted that there is always more need for
resources than we can fill, so one of our goals as a
club is to determine how we can multiply our impact
by choosing good partners. “That’s how Rotary can
continue to make a positive contribution.” Here in
Guelph, we know a lot about agriculture, we know
about health care and we know about volunteering
and fundraising quite a bit too, so there are lots of
partners and lots of synergies to be explored. He closed
by saying that he’s looking forward to what can be
done in Guelph.
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HAPPY BILLS
$ Jim MacKenzie
Continuing his efforts to keep curling in the Club’s agenda every
week, Jim reported that he and Helmuth were present at the recent
Cambridge Bonspiel where they had the opportunity to have their
picture taken with the Olympic Gold Medal for Paralympic curling. The curlers were also fortunate to meet Jim Armstrong, the
gold medal winning skip. And in case anyone doubts his story,
Jim has photos to prove it.
$ Noma Vales
Noma chipped in with a
happy buck to celebrate
Jim MacKenzie
her daughter’s classification speech at the Oakville
Trafalgar Rotary club. The club has really made her daughter feel
welcome. She also mentioned that the Oakville Trafalgar club is cosponsoring a worthwhile project with $350,000 earmarked to bring
clean water and basic sanitation to villages in Uganda.
$ Paul Dredge
Paul thanked President Jim and
his doctors. “It’s nice to be back
Noma Vales
after breaking a leg only six
weeks ago.” Paul contributed a
happy buck for his rapid improvement, and also to thank all the volunteers who helped out as “scribes” for the College Heights students
who were writing their EQAO test.
Paul Dredge
$ $ FINES $ $
The Sergeant-at-arms was away, but John Vieira
felt guilty and paid a fine anyway. (ed. what a
weirdo)
Sergeant-at-Arms Tip Line
Noticed a Rotary infraction? Email your tips to
[email protected]
District 7080 Changeover
and Annual Awards Night
Wednesday June 25, 2014
Hanlon Convention Centre, Guelph
Registration is now open
on the District 7080 Website
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